The Crisis
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A quarter century ago, a group of Iranian students swept into the United States embassy in Tehran, overpowering the Americans there and taking them hostage. The crisis that ensued would last for 444 days. It would define the Carter presidency and help give rise to the Reagan administration. It would begin as a rebellion against one brutal dictator and end with another in place. It was the turning point, the moment when radical Islam first rose up against America - the beginning of a clash that continues to define our times today. Now, for the first time, drawing on unprecedented interviews with American, Iranian, and European participants, acclaimed historian David Harris tells the full story of these 444 days. At the center of it were three men who had come to power as outsiders and who were driven by a sense of divine right: the shah of Iran, President Jimmy Carter, and Ayatollah Khomeini. But this is not just a story of presidents and rulers; it is the story of hundreds of other people who played essential roles, including CIA agents, Iranian dissidents, White House officials, enigmatic French intermediaries, Special Forces operatives, Panamanian strongmen, and of course the hostages themselves. This is a story that could not have been told until now. THE CRISIS utilizes groundbreaking discussions with American leaders from Carter on down, as well as previously classified documents and interviews with people in Europe and Iran who had never spoken in detail about their experiences during the hostage-taking. Harris's gripping narrative races from Washington to Tehran to Paris to Panama, tracking a dying shah, a flailing Carter, an ascending Khomeini, the disastrous Desert One rescue attempt, and the lives of the Americans held in blindfolds amid a revolution like none other. With THE CRISIS, David Harris has written an essential work of modern history that is also a breathtaking narrative of passion, politics, and faith. THE CRISIS was originally published by Little Brown in 2004.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, exactly 25 years ago, awakened America to the depth of its unpopularity in the Middle East, and militant Islamism discovered its capacity to land a blow against a superpower. Journalist Harris (Shooting the Moon; etc.), formerly with the New York Times Magazine, rarely breaks from his suspenseful narrative for analysis, but the current relevance of the events is obvious. The initial antagonists are the shah, with his lavish lifestyle and authoritarian government, and the enigmatic Ayatollah Khomeini. Harris's main windows onto the Iranian revolution are its two most powerful moderates, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and Abolhassan Bani Sadr, formerly Khomeini's brain trust during his exile in Paris. When a group of radical Muslim students stormed the American embassy and took 63 hostages, it helped consolidate the dominance of the Iranian revolution's Islamists. The psychology and decision-making process of the mullahs remain opaque in this account. Jimmy Carter's White House appears equally befuddled. Harris resourcefully reconstructs the administration's tortuous internal debates and hapless back-channel negotiations with Iran's revolutionary government. His dramatically paced tale culminates in gripping descriptions of the United States' failed rescue attempt and the endgame of the standoff, with its decisive effect on the election of 1980. 8 pages of photos not seen by PW.